Straddling Two Worlds
Paul Tierney

Tierney Photo by Steve Boljonis

Some aspects of Paul E. Tierney's (MBA '68) first weeks at Soldiers Field were easy to get used to. “Our apartment in Peabody Terrace had a kitchen with a refrigerator and a bathroom with a toilet that flushed,” he recalls with a smile. “The place was clean, and the lights actually went on,” says Tierney, who moved into this comparatively luxurious setting with his wife, Susan, after he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Chile for two years.

But the difference between being a student at HBS and working with farmers in South America was marked. “At first, my classmates at HBS seemed so competitive and only interested in their own good,” remembers the lanky Tierney, who had majored in philosophy at Notre Dame. “I eventually matured and was able to depersonalize the differences I had with other students. I came to realize that a warfare of ideas in the classroom was healthy.” It was one of Tierney's first lessons in compartmentalizing his dual interests — that of running a highly profitable enterprise and that of helping those less fortunate than himself. After some experimentation with combining the two, he determined that he could make a bigger impact on society if he first succeeded in business. “I've really had two careers,” he observes, “one as a for-profit financial entrepreneur and one as a crusader for economic development.”

As a managing partner in his own investment firm, Tierney has the freedom to spend about half of his time working with TechnoServe, a nonprofit international development organization that he has chaired for the past decade. While he now draws a firm line between business and public service, the skills he uses in each realm overlap tremendously. Many of those skills — negotiation, leadership, and financial analysis, for instance — were first honed at HBS. After his initial adjustment to the MBA Program, Tierney thrived and upon graduating as a Baker Scholar, completed the coursework for the doctoral program before realizing that academic life did not suit him.

Eventually, Tierney took a job in private equity and venture capital in New York City. Armed with a “healthy respect for what I didn't know,” he excelled as an investor and was soon asked to help start a merchant bank in London. He returned to the United States in 1973 and served as chief of financial programs at the U.S. Railway Association (now Conrail).

When the one-year stint ended, Tierney joined the corporate finance division of White, Weld & Co. in New York and settled with his wife and three children in Connecticut. At White Weld, he developed a department that focused on transportation industries and, at age 32, was named a senior vice president. When the firm was bought (by Merrill Lynch), he and two colleagues decided to branch out on their own and founded Gollust, Tierney & Oliver in 1978. For the next eighteen years, the firm grew, expanding from its initial focus on financing transportation projects into strategic block investing and private equity.

Firmly established in the business world, in the late 1980s, Tierney set out to find a way to fight poverty in Latin America and Africa. “I had been involved in various efforts since my Peace Corps days, but I knew it was time to get serious,” explains Tierney, who credits his parents and his Catholic upbringing with instilling in him a commitment to public service. “I found many relief organizations, but I didn't find many development assistance organizations,” he says. “I wanted something that was hands-on and firm-based, not just a think tank or a Band-Aid.” When a friend told him about TechnoServe, a nonprofit that worked with entrepreneurs to build sustainable businesses, he knew he'd found the right match. “The more I saw, the more I liked,” says Tierney, who got involved immediately and in 1992, was appointed chairman.

In 1995, Tierney took a one-year leave of absence from Gollust, Tierney & Oliver to explore his other interests, including travel, soccer, and teaching. When he returned to work, he stepped back from his previous duties and launched a new, smaller-scale investment business. “I'm now transitioning from player to coach,” says Tierney, who sits on several boards, including those of UAL (the parent company to United Airlines), Liz Claiborne, and St. John's College. Part of that transition includes his position as executive- in-residence at Columbia Business School, where he teaches international entrepreneurial finance.

Tierney's interest in coaching extends beyond the business world and onto the soccer field. In 1994 he invested in the new Washington, D.C., Major League Soccer franchise — D.C. United. While the team did extremely well on the field, it suffered financially. Tierney, who served as chairman of the team for five years, remembers the day that the team first won the MLS championship in 1996 very clearly. “We were in the locker room with bottles of champagne popping, and I said, ‘I don't care how much money I lose on this team, this moment makes it all worthwhile.' However,” he adds with a laugh, “over time, I finally lost enough that I wanted out.” Since selling the team in 2001, Tierney now focuses his interest in soccer on the men's league that he plays in on weekends in Darien and on America SCORES, a nonprofit that uses soccer as a springboard to teach creative writing to inner-city kids.

Sitting in his office looking out over Park Avenue, Tierney reflects on what is most important to him in his personal life. He is especially proud of the relationship he has with Susan, whom he met at her sixteenth birthday party. (Presently, he explains, she is completing a 400-mile pilgrimage — walking across Spain by herself.) He has tried to pass along the values he learned from his parents to his three children, who have brought him much joy, as have his grandchildren. Each of his children has worked in international development, he notes, and pointing to a spectacular pair of photographs of Patagonia taken by one of his sons, each has a sense of adventure that makes a parent proud.

— Susan Young

More on Tierney: Serving through TechnoServe